Triad: the L Series
by mnemosyne23
Summary: *COMPLETE* Three short stories revolving around Malcolm's storyline in the second season premiere, Shockwave II. Kindly read and review! Rated PG-13/R, varying by chapter.
1. Chapter 1: Had He Lingered

**Triad: The L Series**  
_By Mnemosyne_

  


**_Chapter One: HAD HE LINGERED_**

  
  
_DISCLAIMER:_ No familiar characters or situations belong to me. They are the property of Paramount Studios and all affiliated companies and individuals thereof. Long story short, me be broke, so you no sue. LOL! 

_SUMMARY:_ Three unrelated short stories revolving around Malcolm's storyline in the second season premiere, "Shockwave II." **THIS CHAPTER** -- Malcolm's thoughts as he rests in sickbay. 

_RATING:_ In the PG-13 to R range 

_CODES:_ R, R/S 

_CATEGORY: _Angst, romance, drama 

_SPOILERS:_ Possible spoilers up to and including "Shockwave II." 

_NOTES:_  
This is my first "Enterprise" fanfic, so I beg you to please be gentle! As I was watching "Shockwave II," I was struck by T'pol's usage of the term "minor injuries" to describe Malcolm's beating at the hands of the Suliban. Now, perhaps they weren't life threatening, but I'd hardly call them minor! I love T'pol, but that ticked me off a little bit. LOL! Needless to say, it started the plot bunnies running rampant in my head, twitching their fluffy tails at me, so I gave in. LOL! But instead of writing three separate stories and posting them individually, I thought I'd try being a little different and posting them together as separate yet related chapters revolving around a theme: Malcolm's actions during "Shockwave II." An anthology of sorts. Weird? Yeah, I've no doubt. LOL! But I had fun doing it. :-D If you don't like one segment, try the others anyway. They're all written in a slightly different style, so one of them might just strike your fancy. I hope you enjoy! If you do, please review! I'd love to hear what positive comments you have to say. Anything overly harsh or negative, please feel free to not review. *giggle* I'm fragile. 

_ADDENDUM:_ Did I mention I'm a rabid Reed/Hoshi 'shipper? *innocent eyes* So expect a healthy dose of them in here! :-D 

  


* * *

_If I should fall in far off battle --  
Cannons roar and rifles rattle --  
Thoughts fly homeward, words unspoken --  
Valiant hearts are oftimes broken…  
  
  
~ "Love, Farewell" ~  
Traditional, as sung by  
John Tams  
_

  
  
At least he hadn't been shot. 

It was poor consolation to the wounded Armory Officer as he rested in Sickbay aboard the starship _Enterprise,_ but it would have to do. He was beaten and bloody, it ached to swallow, and his head hurt like hell, but at least he hadn't been shot. Every nerve ending was screaming in protest, from his hair follicles to the soles of his feet, but at least he hadn't been shot. If he didn't breathe slowly enough, or if he moved his head too fast, the room started to spin and he felt as though he were going to float away. 

But at least he hadn't. Been. Shot. 

"I'm the bleeding armory officer," he muttered, ignoring the lancing pain this caused in his jaw. "I should have been bloody well shot." The irony of the foul language was not lost on him - "bleeding armory officer" described him to a tee. 

Sighing heavily, Malcolm closed his eyes, blocking out the swirling colors of the medical bay. He'd given up trying to make his muscles relax - like Pavlov's dog, they were trained to coil when danger was afoot. The captain had returned to the ship, there was no sign of the Suliban, and for all intents and purposes, all was well. But Malcolm hadn't gotten his position as chief of ship's security by taking everything at face value. Trust nothing, that was his motto. So he waited - waited for the next phase cannon blast to rock the ship, or for the next lizard-faced alien to materialize beside his biobed. His fingers twitched anxiously, eager to wrap around a phase pistol. 

Dr. Phlox had been called to the bridge by Commander Tucker, who wanted the amiable Denobulan to verify that Captain Archer was, in truth, all in one piece. Archer, for his part, had refused to go to sickbay, so Trip had decided to bring the water to the horse and "MAKE the damn fleabag drink!" as the chief engineer had so colorfully put it. Which left Malcolm alone with Ensign Cutler, who was doing something quiet and unobtrusive in another section of Sickbay. Reed knew that was his cue to get some sleep - Captain's orders and everything - but he couldn't make his mind rest. His adrenaline was still pumping from his beating on the bridge. 

//Best not to think on that, old boy,// Malcolm told himself firmly. //Move along.// 

Perhaps he'd have a visitor soon. Except for Trip's quick visit to fetch the doctor, and T'pol briefly looking in on him to verify that he was still alive and kicking, the lieutenant had been left to his own devices. He was a solitary creature by habit, but a selfish part of his personality had hoped that someone might take a moment, now that the danger was seemingly past, to drop in and congratulate him on being a bit of a hero. Nothing along the lines of Theseus or Hercules, or any of the mythological paradigms of heroism. But it would be to deny his own vanity to say that he didn't think he deserved a LITTLE bit of praise. 

He sighed. 

//Hoshi.// 

Now where had HER name come from? 

//I'd rather like to see Hoshi just now.// 

Chuckling to himself - then wincing at the pain it caused - he tilted his head to the side, eyes still closed. Hoshi had even less need to come see him than T'pol did. Malcolm had the sneaking suspicion that the young comm officer was a little afraid of him. She certainly didn't go out of her way to chat with him when they were alone, nor did she seek him out for anything other than ship's business. Sometimes he had the urge to sneak up behind her and whisper, "Boo!" in her ear, just to see her reaction. But the more dignified - and thankfully, duty-conscious - side of his nature kept him at bay. 

Still, it would be nice to see her. There was something soothing about the pretty Asian communications officer. Malcolm was tempted to link it to her eyes - huge and liquid, like tranquil pools in fragrant Japanese gardens. T'pol's face was too full of angles and jagged edges, and Trip, while a close friend, was about as calming as a pot of very strong coffee. Mayweather was an excitable young man with a tendency to get nervous whenever he was in Sickbay - no blame there. And the captain… Well, the captain was the Captain. It was difficult to relax in his presence. Especially if he had the confounded pup with him. 

But Hoshi was different. It sounded cliched, but she was a good listener; good to the point that one didn't even have to speak for her to hear every word you would have said, had you spoken. Reed gloried in his reticence - good British boys didn't go about chattering like a flock of geese. They spoke when spoken to, or when there was something very important to say. Hoshi's world of words and language was unexplored territory for him, and he found it fascinating. He would have talked to her about her field of expertise - hung on almost every word - if she hadn't spent quite so much time making tracks to get away from him. 

Seeing her without a shirt… Well, that had been a lovely little shock. Fantastic, yes, but bloody terrifying as well. 

Perhaps THAT was why she was on his mind. He wondered briefly what had happened to the shirt he'd loaned her, and if he should ask for it back. 

Thinking of Ensign Sato was not helping his condition. If anything, it was making things worse - he was now aware of aches and pains in places he hadn't even realized he'd been wounded. Already tense muscles were tightening even further, bunching like fists in his thighs and abdomen. He moaned. 

//Stop,// he told himself firmly, clenching his teeth together and fighting back another moan. //Stop thinking. Stop everything. Sleep. Sleep, damn you to hell…// 

His internal chronometer piped up cheerfully, informing him that he'd been in this infernal room for a good three hours. Three long, sleepless, aching hours. 

Three very lonely hours. 

//Just a little bit of a hero,// he thought absently. 

Letting his eyes open - mere slits in his angular face - he gazed at the Sickbay door, willing it to open. Perhaps the doctor would return and give him an inhumanly large smile and tell him that all was well with the bridge crew, and he should get some sleep. Or maybe it would be Trip, grinning from ear to ear and drawling about hard-headed Englishmen and their penchant for getting "whupped" by every tinhorn alien that came down the pipe. Or maybe the Captain would come down and thank him personally for helping to rescue him from the future. 

Then again, perhaps Ensign Sato would show up and offer to give him back his shirt, and everything underneath… 

His blue eyes burned as he gazed at the door, waiting. 

Twenty minutes later, he let his lids drift closed. 

//Not much of a hero,// he reminded himself quietly. //Happens all the time…// 

It would be nice to have a visitor, but there were more important things to be seen to aboard a starship such as this. Engines had to be checked, checked, and rechecked. Weapons had to be primed and diagnostics had to be run. Sensors had to be monitored, and anomalies examined. One missing officer was hardly a blip on the map; there were a dozen underlings who could take his place. 

He was falling asleep; he could feel it. Despite the soreness in his facial muscles and the aching of his upper body, he let himself relax. Breathing deeply, he decided he had no right to feel bitter. Given their options, he'd done only what had to be done. There was no heroism involved - put in his situation, anyone would have made the same decision. It was the only decision that could be made. 

//Not much of a hero, Malcolm,// he chided himself, then added sarcastically, //What would dear old dad say?// 

That wasn't a very pleasant thought to drift off to sleep with, so he pictured Hoshi shirtless in his doorway again, and decided that was much better. 

//No right to complain,// he thought sleepily, as sleep pulled him under. //And at least I didn't get shot…// 

  
  
THE END (of chapter one) 


	2. Chapter 2: Had She Let Him In

**Triad: The L Series**  
_By Mnemosyne_

  


**_Chapter Two: HAD SHE LET HIM IN_**

  
  
_DISCLAIMER:_ No familiar characters or situations belong to me. They are the property of Paramount Studios and all affiliated companies and individuals thereof. Long story short, me be broke, so you no sue. LOL! 

_SUMMARY:_ Three unrelated short stories revolving around Malcolm's storyline in the second season premiere, "Shockwave II." **THIS CHAPTER** -- Hoshi and Malcolm, dark quarters, and frantic caresses in the night. 

_AUTHOR'S NOTE:_ This chapter is ANOTHER possible outcome of Malcolm's experience in "Shockwave II." It is not necessarily related to the first chapter, though it could be read as an extension if you fancy. 

_RATING:_ This chapter is _definitely_ R, for allusions to sexual situations, and a LITTLE bit of swearing. I think one word. LOL! 

_CODES:_ R/S, S 

_CATEGORY: _Angst, romance, drama 

_NOTES:_ Thank you so much to all the kind reviewers who took a moment to comment on chapter one! You're all so wonderful and lovely - I'm truly touched! BR>   
**Chris Stumpf:** Let me assure you that I've been to Linguistics Database at LEAST once every day for the past two weeks. LOL! I love it there! I'm so honored that you'd think I was good enough to post there, with all those wonderful authors!   
  
And **NEHAL**!! *bowling Nehal over in a huge bear hug* Long time no talk! 

  


* * *

_"Will you hold me sacred, will you hold me tight?  
Can you colorize my life? I'm so sick of black and white!  
Can you make it all a little less old?  
_

~ "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That) ~   
Meatloaf (feat. Mrs. Loud) 

  
  
He came to her cabin at half past one, a quarter of an hour early and running hot. 

"A shirt for a shirt," he murmured huskily, their secret code, before wrapping his arms around her slight waist and lifting her off the floor, carrying her deep into the dark reaches of her chamber. Hoshi didn't complain - couldn't if she'd tried. His embrace was vice-tight, cinching her waist and leaving her breathless. 

The first kiss was pure hunger, devouring her mouth like a feast to a starving man. An untenable fear suddenly emerged in the young woman's stomach: what if he wasn't here for her? What if she was nothing but a warm body to feed off of; a host to the parasite of his soul-deep need? His body pressed hers into the wall of her cramped quarters as he sucked eagerly on her lips, and the fear grew. 

"Malcolm," she gasped as he drew back for a breath. "Malcolm…" 

He didn't answer, moving in again to attack her throat with lips like flame. She closed her eyes and let him, her fingers balling into fists against his shoulders. 

  


****************

  
Hoshi Sato loved heroes. Linguists learned their trade through stories and mythology; the interpretations of good and evil, as told by thousands upon thousands of cultures. Her own social history was rife with tales of bravery and honor - lives lost in the defense of family, home and country. From a young age, she'd held a secret ardor for the deeds of such archetypes as Theseus, Cuchulain, and Paul Bunyan. When all the girls in her high school class had been crushing on Bobby Van Zan, the dishy soccer captain, Hoshi had kept a framed engraving of Odysseus in her locker, next to a much worn pin-up of the young Zefram Cochrane. 

  


******************

  
When the kisses finally slowed - from ardent hunger to intent exploration - Hoshi felt her trepidation start to ebb away, as it had every night since the first. He wouldn't have come if he hadn't wanted her and her alone. 

"You came early," she whispered breathlessly, fingers fumbling blindly in the dark before finding the zipper of his uniform and pulling it down. 

"I know," he answered, shrugging out of the offending material and pulling off the t-shirt underneath. Crushing her into the wall again, his hands began to bunch up her oversized sleeping shirt, worn especially for this occasion. No cumbersome shorts to overcome, or drawstrings to loosen. 

"Someone may have seen you," she panted against his mouth. A soft whimper passed her lips; his hands were moving with torturous slowness. 

"I would have shot them," he mumbles against her lips, before moving down to run a tongue along her collarbone. 

He sounded like he meant it, too. And God help her, she liked it. 

  


*****************

  
Early boyfriends knew her fetish: heroes made her hot. When she reached Starfleet academy, she'd had her fair share of hero types, but they'd quickly bored her. They all played at heroism, but had nothing to back up their claims. They playacted the exercises, but never made the cut. 

For a time, she'd dabbled in romantic heroes - her Lancelot period, as she'd dubbed it. Tortured, angst-ridden souls, staggering in their selfless beauty. Or that was how they'd seemed at the time - upon later inspection, she realized they were clingy whiners who wanted her to mother them. Too kinky for her tastes. 

Once she'd dated a man named Mercutio, but quickly realized names weren't everything. She left him when she learned he was a tax attorney. 

For a long time, she'd given up on ever finding her own personal hero; someone she could look at with wide, adoring eyes, and know it was deserved. //All of the good ones are dead or taken,// had been her motto for years. She became convinced that real heroism was only true in romance novels and a variety of pulp fiction comic books. 

Until she boarded a starship, and discovered that heroes were made everyday. All she had to do was bide her time…and wait. And hope he - whoever _HE_ might - would want her in return. 

  


*******************

  
The trip to the bed was swift and smooth, obviously practiced, but she didn't let that bother her. If they'd compared scorecards on past conquests, Hoshi was certain she and Malcolm would stack up pretty well against each other. He might find that surprising, but that made it all the more delicious; the only thing better than a flesh and blood hero was a flesh and blood hero caught by surprise. 

His skin burned where it was still bruised, and she ran a delicate hand over his ribs as he ravaged her neck. Vividly, she remembered her reaction upon finally seeing him after the invading Suliban had left the ship. Bruised and battered, standing to attention, with a well-hidden grimace of pain lacing his face, he had given her a jolt that had been as unexpected as it had been pleasant. "Well done, Malcolm," Jonathan had said at their victory celebration, with the sincerity and appreciation that was his trademark. 

  


*****************

  
"My job, sir," Malcolm replied, with a curt bob of the head. 

"Above and beyond yer job I think, Malcolm," Trip interjected with a twinkling smile. 

"Only what I had to do, Commander Tucker." 

"I swear, your upper lip couldn't get any stiffer if ya reinforced it with titanium alloy. Quit actin' the hero and let us heap some praise on ya, ya crazy Englishman." 

Another jolt, even more intoxicating than the first. _Quit actin' the hero…_

A hero. Reed was a hero. A full-blooded, heart pounding, do-or-die hero, born of action and begrudging of praise. 

He had also seen her naked already. The plusses just kept growing. 

Which was why it was the easiest thing in the world to hand him a glass of champagne and ask, "Would you care to grab a bite to eat, Lieutenant?" said with just enough flair to make him understand that she wasn't talking about food. "And I need to give you back your shirt." 

His look of surprise - followed by intense interest, and a healthy dose of lust - was gravy. 

  


**********************

  
A hand on his chest and another over his mouth were enough to still the hungry lieutenant. Eyes smoldering, Hoshi flipped them over, straddling his body with smooth white thighs. "Easy, sir," she murmured, knowing how much it excited him when she reminded him of their ranks. "We don't want you to hurt yourself, now do we?" 

A slow grin spread over Malcolm's face. "That WOULD be awful," he agreed. 

"Mm-hmm." Slowly leaning forward, she began laying feather soft, dainty kisses down his bruised cheek and over his swollen eye. It had only been three days since the victory party, and his recuperation had been slow; partly because of his adamant avoidance of sickbay, and partly because of the nightly games played out in her quarters. 

  


*********************

  
That first night she had done most of the work, but it didn't bother her in the slightest. He was worth it, even wounded. In the nights since, they had swapped control back and forth, sometimes changing in midstride, to fit one another's whims. Each morning Hoshi woke up, showered, and thanked God for conservative uniform standards that required full body coverage. It would have been too difficult to hide the bite marks otherwise. 

She wondered how much the bridge crew knew. There was no doubt in her mind that Trip suspected something; the shit-eating grin he gave her every morning at the start of her shift was testament to that. T'pol was another no-brainer. That first morning, as the stately Vulcan sub-commander had leaned over Malcolm's shoulder to investigate some unusual sensor readings, Hoshi had seen her wrinkle her nose in something that would have been called "surprise" in any species that wasn't a Vulcan. Her gaze had switched from the sensor screen, to Malcolm's neck, to the sensor screen, to Hoshi. And there it had lingered, for a split second longer than was logically necessary. 

Hoshi had smiled sweetly in return, and turned back to her console. 

The Vulcan had made no mention of it since. 

"Did she really?" Malcolm had asked that night as they lounged in bed, and he drew intricate Celtic patterns on her stomach with his fingertip. "Funny I didn't notice, having a beautiful woman sniffing my neck like that." 

"She didn't openly sniff. She just…observed." 

"Observed a smell, eh? Funny. I didn't know Vulcan's had eyes in their nostrils. Fascinating." 

Hoshi had hit him with a pillow, then kissed him very hard to muffle their mutual laughter before Ensign Thompkins in the next cabin knocked on the wall again to tell her to quiet down. 

  


*****************

  
After the act - though it should really be called the "experience" - Hoshi ran her fingers through his soft dark hair as he pillowed his cheek on her stomach. Bright lights sparkled across her eyes, even closed, and she moaned softly as his hand massaged the sensitive crook of her knee. "We have to stop doing this," she murmured, arching her back a little and sliding her hand down his spine. 

"Why?" He placed a kiss below her navel, and she shivered as his hot breath cooled against her damp skin. 

"The others might suspect…" 

"They already do." Another kiss, a little lower. 

She shivered. "If Jonathan found out -" 

"Shhhh… He won't." Lips on her hip, a hand rubbing her thigh. 

"When did you become an optimist, Malcolm?" she asked, feeling her resolve weaken, though she didn't mind one bit. 

"When I found something to be positive about, luv." He raised his head a little and gazed up her body. She looked down into his bright blue eyes - burning even in the dark room - and saw him unshielded; her knight in shining armor, stripped down to his skivvies and naked before her, in all senses of the word. 

With a slow grin, she nodded. "Okay," she murmured, tugging on his shoulders. "You can stay." Her eyes twinkled. "Knight gallant." 

Malcolm chuckled and slid up her body again, covering her like a blanket. "Yours to command, lady," he murmured. 

Batting her lashes, she grinned wickedly. "My hero." 

"Your slave." 

"Don't tempt me, Malcolm. I just might chain you to the foot of my bed and keep you there forever." 

"I say it again - your slave, madam." 

"Hush, knight errant, and kiss me sweetly ere dawn breaks o'er the bower." 

"Yea, m'lady." 

She covered his mouth briefly before he reached her lips. "Malcolm? You don't want me to mother you, do you?" 

He gave her a weird look. "Luv, have you ever _met_ mother Reed?" 

"No." 

"If you had, you'd know why I answer with a strident and impassioned **NO**." 

Hoshi laughed. "Good enough for me." 

He kissed her then, and she moaned as his hand slid up her side to bury in her hair. Was this a reawakening of her Lancelot phase? Part of her hoped not, but the rest of her wasn't so sure. Lancelot had been a kinky bastard who enjoyed secret trysts with queens in secluded, passionate places, and a girl could do worse than imagine herself a queen. 

  
  
**THE END** _(of chapter 2)_


	3. Chapter 3: Had They Lost Him

**Triad: The L Series**  
_By Mnemosyne_

  


**_Chapter Three: HAD THEY LOST HIM_**

  
  
_DISCLAIMER:_ No familiar characters or situations belong to me. They are the property of Paramount Studios and all affiliated companies and individuals thereof. Long story short, me be broke, so you no sue. LOL! 

_SUMMARY:_ Three unrelated short stories revolving around Malcolm's storyline in the second season premiere, "Shockwave II." **THIS CHAPTER** -- What do you do when you didn't say goodbye? 

_AUTHOR'S NOTE:_ This chapter is yet ANOTHER possible outcome of Malcolm's experience in "Shockwave II." Due to the events of this chapter being such a departure from those of previous chapters, I'd have to say that it really isn't related to them at all. Not even by a flight of whimsy. LOL! But it's angsty! 

**Warning to my fellow R/S 'shippers!** You're not going to like the ending of this. Heck, **_I_** don't like the ending of this. It just happened! Don't skewer me! It already hurts enough. *cowering* 

_RATING:_ R again, for morose themes and other bouts of melancholy. 

_CODES:_ R/S, S, S/Tu. Character death. 

_CATEGORY: _Angst, romance, drama 

  


* * *

_I'll forget you.   
The more you stay inside of me  
The weaker I grow.  
I'll forget you,  
Tomorrow I will turn and let you go…  
  
~"I'll Forget You"~  
From THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL_

  
  
Trip took it the hardest, because he felt it should have been him. No amount of consoling would convince him otherwise. His normally sparkling eyes were red and blurry now, puffy from lack of sleep and excess of tears. Engineering was silent as a tomb whenever he was there, the ensigns and other crewmen too frightened to make any noise, lest it destroy the fragile wall of emotional control the chief engineer had managed to build for himself. 

"He was my friend, Hosh," the Commander had confided to her late one night soon after it happened, as he drank strong coffee and ate chocolate bars at three o'clock in the morning. "My friend, and I let 'im die. Like a stuck pig, I jus'… let 'im die." The eyes he'd fixed on her hadn't been the eyes of the man she knew - they were not Trip's eyes. They were the eyes of a man who had died inside, because he'd failed to die in reality. 

They were the eyes of a dead man. 

"You know, I didn' even say goodbye?" he told her in a hollow voice that matched his eyes. "Stupid thing is, I didn' think I'd have to." Gazing down into his bottomless cup of coffee, he muttered, "Bastard always seemed indestructible. Then so did _Titanic._ Look how that turned out." 

  


****************

  
The entire ship was quiet, not just engineering. Hoshi would have called it "dead silent," if the phrase hadn't made her flesh goosebump with revulsion. Who had invented that term? Who had had the audacity to profane the dead in such a fashion? Too many years and too much distance had lost the etymology of the phrase to history, but it didn't stop her wondering. It helped keep her mind off other things, more close to home. 

He had died from a blood clot, lodged somewhere in the central brain area. Hoshi wasn't clear exactly where, but she couldn't trust herself to ask Dr. Phlox without breaking down into hysterical tears. That wasn't what Malcolm would have wanted. He would have expected more from the crew than this somber, listless malaise that had taken them over since his death. She could hear him sometimes, chastising his armory staff as they lounged about the torpedoes, going through the motions of attending to the ship's weaponry. _Come on, Jameson,_ she could hear him say. _Up and at 'em, Sanchez. No time for dawdling now. See to those phase pistols, Kruchek. They're positively clogged with grease. Pip, pip. Tally-ho. _

He would never say _Pip, pip_ or _Tally-ho,_ but they sounded British, so she imagined him saying them anyway. It galled her to realize she was already forgetting the sound of his voice. She, Hoshi Sato of the Wonder Ear, was forgetting Malcolm Reed's voice. That distinctive accented baritone, just the right octave for the complex angles of his face. Slightly nasal on the "ah's." Beautifully rounded on the "aw's." She often akinned Commander Tucker's voice to a turkey dinner - stuffing, mashed potatoes, and all the fixings that made a house a home. Malcolm's voice she compared to a satin ribbon - smooth and luxurious, meant for romance and supple leather furniture in a palace parlor. A voice that was born to slither over bare skin, high on smooth thighs; a soft touch and a fleeting kiss. 

_You've been reading too many romance novels, Ensign,_ he would have told her, had he known any of that. _I'll thank you to please refrain from using the words "throbbing," "pulsing," or , Lord help us, "manhood," in any future descriptions of me. Agreed?_ But he would have smiled as he said it. 

God, she missed his smile. 

  


*****************

  
They had given him a burial in space, as befitted a Starfleet officer. His parents had no arguments; Hoshi had begun to hate his parents in fact. The way they accepted his death so calmly, as though it were nothing more than another bump in the road of their lives. Thankfully Mrs. Reed had brushed a stray tear from her eye as Captain Archer delivered the news via a secure com channel to earth; Hoshi could forgive her. But Malcolm's father… An ice cold bastard with hard blue eyes. It made Hoshi wonder where Malcolm had gotten the warmth that suffused his own azure eyes. 

"I knew that boy would get himself killed," Reed the elder had said in the short, clipped words of a man who is annoyed at having his time wasted. Monkeys screamed in the background, deep in the Malaysian jungle. "Best he's done it now. At least he did it in a way befitting a Reed. I trust there was no whining?" 

None, Archer had assured him. 

"No hemming, hawing and carrying on?" 

Again, none. 

"Well good. At least he kept his honor. Thank you for the call, Captain Archer. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd best contact his sister. Good day." 

The screen had gone blank, and the captain's ready room had been silent for a moment. Then, Jonathan had turned his soft gray eyes on her, and said in a quiet voice, "Bastard didn't even ask to come to the funeral." 

//Good,// she'd thought silently. //Malcolm wouldn't have wanted him here anyway.//   


******************

  
Still, despite the anger and grief she felt, Hoshi's pain was nothing compared to Trip's agony. He had been the one to send Malcolm to his death, and no matter how much she tried to convince him otherwise, he wouldn't listen. Sometimes she felt certain that he couldn't have felt worse had **HE** been the one to inflict the blunt head trauma which had caused the blood clot to form. Ever since the armory officer's death, the chief engineer had had trouble sleeping. Dark circles underscored his expressive eyes, and his skin had taken on a ghostly pallor, the same shade as rice paper. 

"Shoulda been me, Hosh," he told her time and again. "Shoulda been me. The bastard shoulda stepped aside and let ME do it. I was his superior officer, goddamit!" 

"You're also chief engineer, Trip," she soothed him gently. "Who else would have been able to fake that warp core reaction so perfectly?" 

"Malcolm knew a thing or two about warp core technology. He coulda done that." 

"Yes, he could have. And we could also be a smoking hulk drifting through space, now couldn't we?" She sighed. "Trip, what happened…happened. We can't change that. Malcolm knew a thing or two about warp technology, but he also knew a thing or two about self-sacrifice; more than anyone should ever have to know in fact. He gave up his family to follow his dream, remember?" She paused, then reached out and took Trip's hand in her own. "This time he gave up his dream to save his family." Gazing into the engineer's eyes, she managed a sad smile. "It was a beautiful way to die. Are you going to take that from him?" 

Trip didn't answer. He just stared into her eyes. So she squeezed his hand 

When she felt him return the squeeze, she knew things were going to be all right. 

  


****************

  
That was where it started; in a quiet, abandoned mess hall in the dead of night, over a pot of lukewarm coffee and a pile of candy wrappers. If anyone had told Hoshi Sato, upon leaving Earth at the start of their mission, that she would fall in love with the plucky engineer, she would have told them to dream on. "Yeah, he's nice looking," she would have said. "But I like the strong, silent types." Besides, she had her eye on only one member of the crew. 

But he died. 

Sometimes she wondered if Malcolm knew her feelings for him, and if he returned them in kind. He had been a man of few words, but his eyes had been more expressive than he could ever have realized. There were times, when he didn't think she noticed, that he had stared at her from across the bridge. Hoshi had always pretended to be busy when she felt his gaze on her in those moments; she had always kept her face tilted down towards her console, adamantly ignoring his appraisal. She was afraid, she realized on later introspection. Afraid that if their gazes met, she would see something in the armory officer's eyes that mirrored her own feelings. Something a little crazy and slightly unhinged. Uninhibited. A little frightening. 

A little like love. And she had never been in love. And it scared her to pieces. 

So she avoided, and he died. He died on her, without a word; not so much as a sigh of farewell. Just the screaming bioscanner as it registered a flatlining heart, playing in discordant harmony with the pounding blood in her ears as she stood over the biobed, hands in her hair, trying to block out the sounds of death and dying and souls departing. It was a nightmarish symphony; it threatened to shatter her eardrums and leave her deaf. She would have preferred being deaf, if it meant she never had to hear the swish of the Grim Reaper's scythe again. 

And then the bioscanner had stopped, and all was quiet, save for the rustle of a sheet being pulled up over the corpse's face. An eerie, palpable silence that echoed in Hoshi's ears. It was worse than the screaming, she decided. Silence meant absence of sound. Absence of sound meant absence of life. 

Her heart was still pounding. She hated the sound. 

Which was why she and Trip fell into each other so easily. They understood one another on a level unshared by the rest of the crew. Each of them knew what it was like to hate the sound of their own heartbeat; he because it meant his hadn't stopped, and she because it meant someone else's had. 

In later years, when they remembered their fallen friend and all that he had meant to them in that first year aboard _Enterprise_, Hoshi and Trip would laugh and exchange stories of their adventures for him. Then they'd grow quiet and stop talking, before one of them accidentally thanked the dead man for bringing them together. _Thank you for dying, Malcolm. You've made us both so happy._

Hoshi was certain Malcolm would have been happy for them. His two best friends, so happy and so in love. He was not a vindictive person; and his soul must have known that deep inside, she still loved him. 

There was no way she could have known - no way on earth, nor in the stars above it - that cold in his coffin, the soul of Malcolm Reed wept for the love he'd never had. 

  
  
**THE END** _(complete)_

  
  
  
_AUTHOR'S END NOTE_: That's all she wrote, folks! I've finally realized why I wrote this story the way that I did - three unrelated chapters revolving around a central theme. The theme was what was important to me: the repercussions of Malcolm's experience in the season premiere. Looking back over the three stories now, I can see why I wrote them as I did, and in the order in which I did: one story where nothing changes, one story where everything changes, and one story where nothing is ever the same again. A threefold universe. Gosh, sometimes my weirdness actually pays off. LOL! 


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